"Is there a ghost, dad?" They were sitting before the fire in the hall after dinner--Kate in her favourite posture, leaning forward and nursing her knee. The veterans and I thought that she always looked at her best so, with her fine eyes fixed on the fire, and the light bringing her face into relief against the shadow. We saw her feet then--one lifted a little from the ground--and V. C. declared they were the smallest you could find for a woman of her size.
[Illustration: Kate in her favourite position.]
"She knows it, too," he used to say, "for when a woman has big feet she always keeps them tucked in below her gown. A woman with an eight-size glove and feet to correspond is usually a paragon of modesty, and strong on women's rights."
"Kate's glove is number six, and I think it's a size too big," broke in the Colonel--we were all lying in the sun on a bank below the beeches at the time, and the Colonel was understood to be preparing a sermon for some meeting--"but it's a strong little hand, and a steady; she used to be able to strike a shilling in the air at revolver practice."
"Ghost, lassie. Oh, in the Lodge, a Carnegie ghost--not one I've ever heard of; so you may sleep in peace, and I 'm below if you feel lonely the first night."
"You are most insulting; one would think I were a milksop. I was hoping for a ghost--a white lady by choice. Did no Carnegie murder his wife, for instance, through jealousy or quarrelling?"
"The Carnegies have never quarrelled," said the General, with much simplicity; "you see the men have generally been away fighting, and the women had never time to weary of them."
"No woman ever wearies of a man unless he be a fool and gives in to her--then she grows sick of him. Life might be wholesome, but it would have no smack; it would be like meat without mustard. If a man cannot rule, he ought not to marry, for his wife will play the fool in some fashion or other like a runaway horse, and he has half the blame. Why did he take the box-seat?" and Kate nodded to the fire. "What are you laughing at?"
"Perhaps I ought to be shocked, but the thought of any one trying to rule you, Kit, tickles me immensely. I have had the reins since you were a bairn, and you have been a handful. You were a 'smatchit' at six years old, and a 'trimmie' at twelve, and you are qualifying for the highest rank in your class."